Messages

1

Emulators / Re: Need help with Linux Steam launch command.

« on: December 26, 2022, 01:56:52 AM »

     I found a way to make it work for Linux, it's fairly easy but does involve a few things.
I am using shell .sh scripts with the executable command bash to launch these with.


First I get the game ID number reading from the .acf files for each game found in this directory,
/home/YOURUSERNAME/.steam/steam/steamapps/

Open the .acf files with a text editor and it will show you the ID number and name of the game.

Then I created a .sh file for each game like this example to have steam launch the game.

For this game I named the file without quotes "BlueKid2.sh" , then I added this to the file

#!/bin/bash
steam steam://run/379640

 Important : Don't forget to make the .sh files executable, chomod +x FILENAME.sh  in terminal.

You can name the .sh file whatever you want, the game name is probably the easiest to keep up with it.

Then I created the emulator file to launch the games like this,

# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.6.2
#
executable           bash
args                 "[romfilename]"
workdir              /home/YOURUSERNAME/Games/Windows/
rompath              /home/YOURUSERNAME/Games/Windows/
romext               .zip;.7z;.sh
system               Windows
info_source          listxml
nb_mode_wait         15
exit_hotkey          Escape
pause_hotkey         P
artwork    boxart          /home/YOURUSERNAME/.attract/artwork/Windows/boxart
artwork    cartart         /home/YOURUSERNAME/.attract/artwork/Windows/cartart
artwork    flyer            /home/YOURUSERNAME/.attract/artwork/Windows/flyer
artwork    marquee      /home/YOURUSERNAME/.attract/artwork/Windows/marquee
artwork    snap            /home/YOURUSERNAME/.attract/artwork/Windows/snap
artwork    wheel          /home/YOURUSERNAME/.attract/artwork/Windows/wheel

I have a dedicated Windows games folder and that's where I put the .sh files although you can change that to whatever you want. I don't play many steam games so I just combine them with my Windows games folder.

For your artwork you just name them the title of your .sh files. Example NeedForSpeed.sh you would name the artwork and snaps NeedForSpeed.png or .mp4 etc and put them in the correct folders.

Once you get a .sh file made for one game you can open a file manager such as Thunar and go to that file in the directory you put it in and select it and copy and paste to create a copy where
you can simply rename the copied .sh and open it with a text editor and edit the game launch ID number for the next game you want to add.


Some things that do not necessarily apply to the steam games, but if you have Windows games installed using .sh files launching them with wine you may run into a launch command for a .sh file
where there are spaces in it, for example the launch command for say :      wine   /home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/YOUR GAME/Game.exe             notice there is a space in between a few places, to
fix this problem add quotes to the command like this :        wine   "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/YOUR GAME/Game.exe"     the quotes tell it there are spaces.

I do a similar thing with launching some Epic games that I have installed with Lutris, what I do there is create a desktop shortcut with Lutris and get the launch command for the game from the shortcut and create a .sh file for each game that way using the same
settings above I did for the steam games.

Like this : SuperMeatBoy.sh  I add

#!/bin/bash
env LUTRIS_SKIP_INIT=1 lutris lutris:rungameid/91

Notice I didn't have to use quotes to launch that game.

You can do that from Lutris to get the command line to launch Steam games by creating a desktop shortcut. It also might be possible to simply add .desktop to Romext in the emulator settings and just move the desktop shortcut over to your RomPath directory and launch it that way using bash for the executable, although I have not tried that yet, a lot of Linux users don't have desktop shortcuts at all depending on what they are using. So I went with using .sh instead.

Anyway, just thought I would come back and offer a solution to launching the games that worked for me using AttractMode & Linux with Steam and Windows & Epic games using Lutris. Like I said there are probably much easier ways to do it, but this worked for me.

2

Emulators / Need help with Linux Steam launch command.

« on: December 22, 2022, 05:38:06 AM »

     I have tried searching the internet and here in the forums but I can't seem to find any information as to how to launch steam games through attractmode on linux.

The setting for "Windows" say


> Steam

executable           C:\attract\EMU\Steam\Steam.exe
args                 -applaunch [name]
rompath              C:\attract\EMU\Steam\SteamApps
romext               .acf
system               PC
info_source          steam



For Linux if I set it to this it will run steam but wont launch any games, I've tried change [name] to "[romfilename]" but that didn't help.

> Steam

executable           steam
args                 -applaunch [name]
rompath              path to roms
romext               .acf
system               PC
info_source          steam

I've also tried for the args just "[romfilename]" without the -applaunch and that didn't work either.

Any help is greatly appreciated, Thanks in advance.

3

General / Re: Noob to AM some initial questions

« on: August 09, 2022, 04:58:02 AM »

Yes you can do that, not sure how great I am at explaining it but I'll try, I do that with Mame and Retroarch using the Mame cores for Retroarch. Hope I explain this right. This works without having to create another list or category, all your games are in the same list.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but recently I realized looking at the "Controls" section in Attract Mode that you can assign a different emulator per game if you want. Go into "Controls" and use the shortcut key combination already assigned or change it to your own shortcut keys for "Edit Game", then go to your game in the list and use the shortcut for Edit game and you can add a different emulator per game that way.

What I do for Mame, while a majority of my Mame games run with regular Mame there are some that require a different version, I use Retroarch and the Mame core versions in retroarch to run those that will not work with regular Mame. Once you've edited and created a .cfg file for one game in that category if you want to use that setup for another game in the list just copy/paste the cfg file and rename the copy to the rom name of the game you want to use that .cfg to, if you are using Retroarch you can change the core it uses to use a different core also.

You don't necessarily have to use Retroarch, you could use whatever you want so long as you set the executable and args correctly. I'm on Linux and my Mame games are named "Arcade". So in the Romlist directory when I edit the 1st game it creates a Directory inside Romlist named "Arcade" and creates a .cfg file for the game I just edited. Like I said from there it's a simple matter of copy/paste and rename that file to another rom name in the list use a text editor to edit the file to what you wish to use. Or you could simply use "Edit Game" shortcut for every game also, for me it's easier to copy/paste and rename the .cfg or use a text editor to edit it.

short example of what's in the config file, I am on linux. And there are other options you can add that it will write depending on what you add in "Edit Game".

it contains this :

executable /usr/bin/retroarch
args -L /home/user/.config/retroarch/cores/mame2003_plus_libretro.so "[romfilename]"

Anyway, I hope this helps.

4

General / Question for the Developer and idea.

« on: August 04, 2022, 04:51:25 AM »

      I was wondering if Attract Mode will ever get a "Box Mode" kind of like how LaunchBox has their Box Mode and Big Box mode. Attract Mode already has the Big Box stuff covered and "The Great Themes Collection" in great, honestly I like it better than anything Big Box has to offer. I switched over to Linux a few months back and no longer use Windows at all and wont be going back.

I'm no coder, LOL Unless you count simple .sh scripts which I wouldn't. But I was thinking, Attract Mode already has all the features to import the art and even the box art and all that, it would be nice to have a secondary mode that just had the systems listed on the left and for each one the Box art on the right to select the games to play. I mean it could be setup to use the existing emulator config files. I realize a theme could probably do that, but I'm talking about a completely additional separate mode where you can switch between the two.

If there was a theme like the one I am talking about and a key shortcut to switch between that theme and one other that would work like I am suggesting here.

Just wondering and thought I would ask. 

5

General / Re: Linux Mint UMA How do I install Attract Mode?

« on: March 18, 2022, 11:48:17 AM »

I figured out what I needed, sorry for anyone who needs to know but I can't remember what all it was, mostly make dev files to compile it.

It would be nice if someone who knows more than me could include a simple command line to install the dependencies for Linux Mint Uma if they have the time in case someone else needs help in the future.

Either way, thank you for you time reading this.

Good day!

6

General / Linux Mint UMA How do I install Attract Mode?

« on: March 18, 2022, 11:26:16 AM »

       Hello all, I switched from arch to Ubuntu because of some game issues. Thought I would mention that just to make a long story short.

I have been trying to install Attract Mode from the tar.gz with no luck it always ends in an error. Or that is using : " make   and then make install" ends in error. Tried other commands here on the forums also.

The problem is I can't find docs for the dependencies for this to work. And the error message I get doesn't really tell me much at all.

Could someone please just give me some command line info on how to install this on Linux Mint latest Ubuntu based version. It's based on Ubuntu Focal from what I understand.

Downloaded the Tar.gz and extracted it and went to the directory and make and make install and then ends with an error with no information about what that error is or how to resolve it.

Anybody got any simple instructions?


Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

7

General / Re: Arch Linux Can't install Attractmode build issues.

« on: February 22, 2022, 12:44:35 AM »

UPDATE : I was able to get the git version to install which is an older 2016 version I think, but that's good enough for me. I could not get the latest version to install though.

Either way, my problem is solved.

8

General / Arch Linux Can't install Attractmode build issues.

« on: February 21, 2022, 12:24:25 PM »

Hello All,

          I use Arch Linux and am having an issue trying to build AttractMode from scratch and or install it using the Pamac or Pacman installers.

I always run into this issue which I think has to do with an update of some package but at the same time I don't know how to downgrade because I am on a fresh install with no way of doing so.

Anyway here's what I get when trying to install and I should mention I have all the dependencies installed mentioned but I am thinking the versions are the issue?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the output of my trying to install Attract mode on Arch as of 2-21-2022

This is how it ends every time :




src/media.cpp: In member function 'virtual bool FeMedia::onGetData(sf::SoundStream::Chunk&)':
src/media.cpp:1223:37: error: 'AVCodecContext' {aka 'struct AVCodecContext'} has no member named 'refcounted_frames'
1223 |                 m_audio->codec_ctx->refcounted_frames = 1;
|                                     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
src/media.cpp:1232:27: error: 'avcodec_decode_audio4' was not declared in this scope; did you mean 'avcodec_decode_subtitle2'?
1232 |                 int len = avcodec_decode_audio4( m_audio->codec_ctx, frame, &got_frame, packet );
|                           ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|                           avcodec_decode_subtitle2
Compiling obj/squirrel/sqdebug.o...
make: *** [Makefile:459: obj/media.o] Error 1
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make: *** [Makefile:459: obj/swf.o] Error 1
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
Aborting...
rm -rf /tmp/bauh@user/arch/build_1645474717

Installation logs can be found at "/tmp/bauh@bobby/logs/install/aur/attract/1645474740.log"
 
It doesn't matter if I use Pamac regardless of Aur  or Git or All or use Bauh as I tried here. I get the same error. A week or so ago I could install it without any problems.
But it doesn't matter if I try and compile it from source either because I get the same errors. So I am thinking the package versions have updated and the build code is not finding what it needs or just wont work?

I have no idea. Anyway any help would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

9

Themes / Re: Arcade Row - WIP

« on: December 24, 2019, 06:54:10 AM »

I have a video a snap and a marquee folder setup but the videos are working on the side cabinets but not the main cabinet. Also the marquees are not showing, what am i doing wrong? Heres my emulator cfg
# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.5.1
#
executable           C:\mame\mame64.exe
args                 [name]
workdir              C:\AttractMode\.
rompath              C:\mame\roms\
romext               .zip;.7z
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
artwork    marquee         C:/mame/marquee
artwork    snap            C:/mame/video;C:/mame/snap

Not sure if this will help or not, I am running Attract Mode on Manjaro Linux. I had the same issue as you where the video snaps were showing on all the cabinets except the middle one.
What worked for me was I used a text editor and edited the file layout.nut in the Arcade Row theme folder. There is a line around line 35 or so that read in my case

local snap0 = fe.add_artwork( "video", 270, 146, 100, 80 );

I changed "video" to "snap" in that line and saved it and now the main cabinet is showing the video snaps.

Not sure why the marquee's aren't showing up.